Sights in Eastern England
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St Margaret's Church
A patchwork of architectural styles, this church is worth a look for its two extraordinarily elaborate Flemish brasses. You can also see a remarkable 17th-century moon dial, which tells the tide, not the time. You'll find historic flood-level markings by the west door.
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Ely Cathedral
Dominating the town and visible across the flat fenland for vast distances, the stunning silhouette of Ely Cathedral is locally dubbed the 'Ship of the Fens'.
Walking into the early 12th-century Romanesque nave, you're immediately struck by its clean, uncluttered lines and lofty sense of space. The cathedral is renowned for its entrancing ceilings and the masterly 14th-century octagon and lantern towers, which soar upwards in shimmering colours.
The vast 14th-century Lady Chapel is the biggest in England; it's filled with eerily empty niches that once held statues of saints and martyrs. They were hacked out unceremoniously by iconoclasts during the English Civil War. Howeve…
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Elm Hill
Elm Hill is an utterly charming medieval cobbled street of crooked timber beams and doors, intriguing shops and snug cafés, this street is also the centre of the local antique business. From here walk down Wensum St to Tombland, where the market was originally located. Despite its ominous overtones, 'tomb' is an old Norse word for empty, hence space for a market.
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Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
Housed in the first major building by Norman Foster, now the darling of Britain's architectural set, the Sainsbury Centre is the most important centre for the arts in East Anglia. Filled with an eclectic collection of works by Picasso, Moore, Degas and Bacon, displayed beside art from Africa, the Pacific and the Americas, it also houses changing exhibitions that cover everything from local heritage to international art movements. Even if you're not an art buff you're almost guaranteed to find something of interest going on here.
The gallery is about 2 miles west of the city centre. To get here take bus 25, 26 or 35 from Castle Meadow (20 minutes).
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Lincoln Cathedral
Towering over Lincoln like a medieval skyscraper, Lincoln's magnificent cathedral is a breathtaking representation of divine power on earth. The great tower rising above the crossing is the third-highest in England at 83m, but in medieval times, a lead-encased wooden spire added a further 79m to this height, topping even the great pyramids of Giza.
The first Lincoln cathedral was constructed between 1072 and 1092, but it fell in a devastating fire in 1141, and the second cathedral was destroyed by an earthquake in 1185. Putting trust in the motto 'third time lucky', Bishop Hugh of Avalon (St Hugh) rebuilt and massively expanded the cathedral, creating one of the largest Go…
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Norwich Cathedral
Norwich's most stunning landmark is the magnificent Anglican cathedral, its barbed spire soaring higher than any in England except Salisbury, while the size of its cloisters is second to none.
Begun in 1096, the cathedral is one of the finest Anglo-Norman abbey churches in the country, rivalled only perhaps by Durham. The sheer size of its nave is impressive, but its most renowned feature is the superb Gothic rib vaulting added in 1463. Among the spidery stonework are 1200 sculpted roof bosses depicting Bible stories. Together they represent one of the finest achievements of English medieval masonry.
Similar bosses can be seen in closer detail in the cathedral's remarkabl…
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Stamford Museum
The Stamford Museum has a muddle of displays on the town's history, including models of circus-performing midget Charles Stretton (aka Tom Thumb) and local heavyweight Daniel Lambert.
Stamford guides are fond of telling the story of the unfortunate Daniel Lambert, who was born a healthy baby in 1770, but who soon began to tip the scales at ever more alarming totals. Despite just eating one meal per day, he ballooned to an astounding 336kg and was hailed by contemporaries as 'the most corpulent man of whom authentic record exists'. When the reluctant celebrity died here in 1809 a wall of his house had to be taken down for the coffin to exit, and 20 pallbearers were needed …
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St Edmundsbury Cathedral
Completed in 2005, the 45m-high Millennium Tower of St Edmundsbury Cathedral is a vision in Lincolnshire limestone, and its traditional Gothic-style construction gives a good idea of how the towers of many other English cathedrals must have looked fresh from the stonemason's chisel.
Most of the rest of the building dates from the early 16th century, though the eastern end is postwar 20th-century, and the northern side was completed in 1990. The overall effect is light and lofty, with a gorgeous hammerbeam roof and a striking sculpture of the crucified Christ by Dame Elisabeth Frink in the north transept. The impressive entrance porch has a tangible Spanish influence, a tri…
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Queens' College
The gorgeous 15th-century Queens' College sits elegantly astride the river and has two enchanting medieval courtyards: Old Court and Cloister Court. Here, too, is the beautiful half-timbered President's Lodge and the tower in which famous Dutch scholar and reformer Desiderius Erasmus lodged from 1510 to 1514. He had plenty to say about Cambridge: the wine tasted like vinegar, the beer was slop and the place was too expensive, but he did note that the local women were good kissers.
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Emmanuel College
The 16th-century Emmanuel College is famous for its exquisite chapel designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Here, too, is a plaque commemorating John Harvard (BA 1632), a scholar here who later settled in New England and left his money to found his namesake university in the Massachusetts town of Cambridge.
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Gonville & Caius College
Known locally as Caius (pronounced keys), Gonville and Caius was founded twice, first by a priest called Gonville, in 1348, and then again in 1557 by Dr Caius (his given name was Keys – it was common for academics to use the Latin form of their names), a brilliant physician who supposedly spoilt his legacy by insisting the college admit no 'deaf, dumb, deformed, lame, chronic invalids, or Welshmen'! Fortunately for the college, his policy didn't last long, and the wheelchair-using megastar of astrophysics, Stephen Hawking, is now a fellow here.
The college is of particular interest thanks to its three fascinating gates: Virtue, Humility and Honour. They symbolise the pro…
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Lincoln Castle
One of the first castles thrown up by the victorious William the Conqueror to keep his new kingdom in line, Lincoln Castle offers awesome views over the city and its miles of surrounding countryside. Highlights include the chance to view one of the four surviving copies of the Magna Carta (dated 1215), and the grim Victorian prison chapel, dating back to the days when this was the county jailhouse and execution ground.
Free tours of the castle run at 11am and 2pm daily from April to September and on weekends in winter.
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Ancient House
A glorious 17th-century facade of sugary-white wedding-cake pargeting decorates the front of Ipswich's most famous building. Built in the 15th century, Ancient House (aka Sparrowe's House) is one of the finest examples of Restoration artistry you'll see and crawls with mythological creatures and characters.
There are four relief panels each representing the continents discovered at the time - Asia is an Oriental dome, America is a tobacco pipe, Europe is a Gothic church, and Africa has an African astride a crocodile (eh?)
The building now houses a not-so-ancient kitchen outfitters, but you can take a peek at the hammer-beam roof inside.
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Christ's College
Over 500 years old and a grand old institution, Christ's is worth visiting if only for its gleaming Great Gate emblazoned with heraldic carving of spotted Beaufort yale (antelope-like creatures), Tudor roses and portcullis. Its founder, Lady Margaret Beaufort, hovers above like a guiding spirit. A stout oak door leads into First Court, which has an unusual circular lawn, magnolias and wisteria creepers. Pressing on through the Second Court there is a gate to the Fellows' Garden, which contains a mulberry tree under which 17th-century poet John Milton reputedly wrote Lycidas. Charles Darwin also studied here, and his room has been restored as it would have been when he liv…
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Abbey Remains
Just beyond the Great Gate is a peaceful garden where the Great Court was once a hive of activity. Just beyond is a dovecote that marks the only remains of the Abbot's Palace. The best-conserved remains of this once mighty abbey church are part of the western front and Samson Tower, which were borrowed by houses built into them. In front of Samson Tower is a beautiful statue of St Edmund by Dame Elisabeth Frink (1976).
The rest of the abbey spreads eastward like a ragged skeleton, with various lumps and pillars hinting at its immense size. Just north of the church lie more clustered remains of monastic buildings.
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Trinity College
Trinity College is one of the largest, wealthiest and most attractive colleges. It was established in 1546 by Henry VIII, whose statue peers out from the top niche of the great gateway (he’s holding a chair leg instead of the royal sceptre, the result of a student prank). Check the website for frequent free entry periods. The Great Court, the largest in either Cambridge or Oxford, incorporates some fine 15th-century buildings. Beyond the Great Court are the cloisters of Nevile’s Court and the dignified Wren Library, built by Sir Christopher in the 1680s.
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Great St Mary's Church
Cambridge's staunch university church was built between 1478 and 1519 in the late-Gothic Perpendicular style. If you're fit and fond of a view, climb the 123 steps of the tower for superb vistas of the dreamy spires, albeit marred by wire fencing.
The beautiful classical building directly across King's Pde is the Senate House, designed in 1730 by James Gibbs; graduations are held here in summer, when gowned and mortar-boarded students parade the streets to pick up those all-important scraps of paper.
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St Julian's church
Tucked away in a tiny alley, St Julian's church is a shrine to Julian of Norwich and has been a centre for pilgrimage for centuries. Writer and mystic Julian (also known as Juliana, 1342-c 1429) wrote down her religious visions in a collection called The Revelations of Divine Love, which is unparalleled in English literature for its clarity and depth of perception. Sadly the cell where she wrote the book was torn down in the Reformation, much of the building was reconstructed after WWII.
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Lincoln Cathedral's Central Tower
Up in the Lincoln Cathedral's central tower, the veteran Victorian bell Great Tom still swings its ponderous 2m, 270kg bulk to sound the hours. Just beyond the tower, the elaborate choir screen is studded with characters, including a stonemason sticking out his tongue just to the left of the door. St Hugh's Choir itself is topped by some quirky vaulting dubbed the 'crazy vault' for its angles, while the superbly carved and canopied stalls below are a classic example of medieval craftsmanship.
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King’s College
King’s College is one of the most sublime buildings in Europe and Cambridge’s foremost tourist attraction. The chapel was begun in 1446 by Henry VI and completed around 1516. Henry VI’s successors, notably Henry VIII, added the intricate fan vaulting and elaborate wood-and-stone carvings of the interior. The chapel comes alive when the choir sings and there are services during term and in July (phone for performance times).
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Church of St Bene't
The oldest structure in the county, the Saxon tower of this Franciscan church was built around 1025. The round holes above the belfry windows were designed to offer owls nesting privileges; they were valued as mouse killers. The church also has a Bible that belonged to Thomas Hobson, owner of a nearby livery stable, who told customers they could hire any horse they liked as long as it was the one nearest the door - hence the term 'Hobson's choice', meaning no choice at all.
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Little St Mary's Church
Little St Mary's The church's unwieldy original name was St Peter's-without-Trumpington-Gate, which gave the college its name. Inside is a memorial to student Godfrey Washington, great-uncle of George. His family coat of arms was the stars and stripes, the inspiration for the US flag. Henry Cavendish, the first person to measure the density of water, also studied here. He also calculated the planet's weight: about six billion trillion metric tonnes if you must know.
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Magdalene College
Originally a Benedictine hostel, riverside Magdalene has the dubious honour of being the last college to allow women students; when they were finally admitted in 1988, male students wore black armbands and flew the college flag at half-mast. Its greatest asset is the Pepys Library, housing the magnificent collection of books the famous mid-17th- century diarist bequeathed to his old college.
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Lincoln Imp
The Angel Choir is graced by 28 angels carved high up the walls of the Lincoln Cathedral. It was built as a shrine to St Hugh but modern pilgrims are mostly preoccupied with hunting for the famous Lincoln Imp, a lovably roguish little horned character that is now the city's emblem. Various fun legends surround the imp, but we like the one that the mischievous creature was caught chatting up one of the carved angels and was promptly turned to stone.
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Usher Art Gallery
Just east is the historic Usher Art Gallery, which now belongs to the same complex but sits separately in a grand mansion amid parkland. It dwells on the paintings and drawings of Peter de Wint (1784-1849) but also has works by JMW Turner, LS Lowry and others. The museum is also temporary home to bits and bobs belonging to Lincolnshire-born poet Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-92), but you'll need to be accompanied to a back room to see them.
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